If you're talking about reskins then yeah I do it all the time because we DMs have better things to do with our time than reinventing the wheel. Incidentally, the Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess describes the lost continent of the Lemurian Remnant which is also a good place for tcho-tchos to pop up.

Handy Haversack wrote:

Also, I think my players like quoting Planet of the Apes: The Musical.

Re: Demihumans!

WARDUKE wrote:

If you were going to include AD&D style Demihumans in AS&SofH, what would you do to balance out their extra abilities against humans (since the level cap is 12 for everyone)?

To ensure parity between alien/demihuman and human characters in a human-centric setting, I rely upon good ol' fashioned racism. This works in both sci-fi and fantasy games where non-human characters are the obvious choice from a min-max perspective but humans are the dominant culture.

Interestingly enough, I've seen this backlash into entire parties comprised of non-humans.

Re: Demihumans!

WARDUKE wrote:

AD&D limited levels for Demihuman characters in order to balance their abilities with those of Humans.

If you were going to include AD&D style Demihumans in AS&SofH, what would you do to balance outtheir extra abilities against humans (since the level cap is 12 for everyone)?

Thanks.

InterestingIf I allowed Demi-Humans in AS&SH, I would probably use the AD&D cap rules. But, that being said, I would probably keep options to the races in the AS&SH book.

Another interesting point, in my D&D games, most of my players are humans. I do make it hard for players to play demi-humans, to a point, because of the setting. My current campaign which takes place in a war-torn/occupied Verbobonc, all demi-humans have been moved out and elves especially are killed on site. Makes it hard to be a 1/2 elf.

Re: Demihumans!

Iron Ranger wrote:

Re: Demihumans!

We have it both ways, or will soon. In my longstanding campaign world,which was 1st edition and will transition to Labyrinth Lord Advanced with the new rulebook, it is chock full of demi-humans, with level limits along the lines of Unearthed Arcana or Labyrinth Lord. Only demi-humans can multi-class and their limits can be achieved regardless of ability scores. If they single class, the listed max can be exceeded by 2 levels.

I bolted Hyperborea on as the north pole of my campaign world and PCs there are governed by AS&SH rules. So, humans only. The initial plan is to create two parties and they'll eventually come together at higher levels. At that point the demi-humans may end up in Hyperborea, but it would be as true curiosities/freaks.

Right now we're just playing the Hyperborean side, so it's all humans, though I recently realized that all the characters are the new classes. We have a berserker, pyromancer, cryomancer, shaman, scout, and huntsman. So that will be pretty cool when they merge with the "traditional" classes down the road.

Re: Demihumans!

Spider of Leng wrote:

Right now we're just playing the Hyperborean side, so it's all humans, though I recently realized that all the characters are the new classes. We have a berserker, pyromancer, cryomancer, shaman, scout, and huntsman. So that will be pretty cool when they merge with the "traditional" classes down the road.

Re: Demihumans!

WARDUKE wrote:

WARDUKE wrote:

If you were going to include AD&D style Demihumans in AS&SofH, what would you do to balance out their extra abilities against humans (since the level cap is 12 for everyone)?

If I were to include playable demi-humans, I'd either make them race-as-class (like OD&D) or make their differences purely cosmetic (just another human race variant, basically).

Option 1. Elves would all have abilities of the Warlock class (a fighter/magic-user basically) and some of their typical racial abilities (see in the dark, find secret doors, move quietly, etc), but also have an elevated XP track like the Berserker or Barbarian. Dwarves would be Fighters, Gnomes Legerdemainists (Illusion) and Hobbits Thieves.

Option 2. The demi-humans would each have their own strong common physical appearance traits (like pointy ears on an elf), but no class limitations or special racial abilities.

If you wanted them to have access to all classes and retain special racial abilities, I guess level limits or doubling XP requirements might work.

I have to admit, I have not given this topic much thought. To me, AS&SH is Hyperborea and O/AD&D is Greyhawk. If I want a game with demi-humans (and sometimes I do - some of favorite games had prominent demi-humans), I grab my O/AD&D Greyhawk stuff. Not saying you are wrong to attempt to merge certain elements (our hobby has a time-honored homebrew tradition that I strongly support), just explaining why I don't have a more detailed, comprehensive response. Good luck!

Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face

Re: Demihumans!

To update a post I made an age ago in this thread... I think it's prudent to report what actually went down in play when I allowed demihumans into my sword & sorcery campaign...

I went the route of reskinning Tolkienesque demihumans into something more palatable for the Hyborian Age. So I had h.floreiensis, earthly jinn, half-nephilim, mutants, etc. The problem is once you open the door, at least half the group wants to play a freak. In a clannish and superstitious world like Howard's and I imagine Smith's, all sessions revolved around the party's race. Interactions with NPCs, authorities, merchants, anyone... had to either account for the party's weirdos and the PCs' reactions in kind (which were never subtle). Otherwise I had to handwave the issue. This either pissed the player off, because they wanted their race choice to "matter," or felt stupidly incongruous to the milieu in which we were playing.

The game never got a chance to be about high adventure. They never got to find out about the adventures. It was all about "muh character." It wasn't Conan, it wasn't sword & sorcery. The campaign felt like those angsty navel-gazing games some of us were subjected to in the 90's. I felt that one mutant in the party fit the genre okay, but there can never be one: "if he can play a non-human why can't I?" "me, too!"

Most groups have a "that guy" that insists on playing something freakish or genre-subverting in any game you run, and I'd argue that AS&SH has its Atlanteans, Hyperboreans, bards, paladins (ymmv)--for that guy. I would have argued differently 8 months ago, but as a wiser man said earlier in the thread: